


One For Sorrow

by supernovainparadise



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Human, Cigarettes, Connor & Upgraded Connor | RK900 are Twins, Connor Deserves Happiness, Gen, Good Parent Hank Anderson, Hank Anderson is Connor and Upgraded Connor | RK900's Parent, His full name is Nicholas but he goes by Niles, Human Upgraded Connor | RK900, M/M, Temporary Character Death, Upgraded Connor | RK900 Has a Different Name
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:27:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23437672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supernovainparadise/pseuds/supernovainparadise
Summary: Tragedy seems to follow Nicholas "Niles" Anderson like a storm cloud. He lost his mother when he was an infant, his younger brother when he was about thirty, and his twin only a few years after that. Nowadays, it's as though he's walking through a foot of snow, covering the waves of emotion with an ice-cold facade as his father drowns his own with whiskey.When androids across Detroit begin acting strangely, the DPD hands the case to Hank and Niles. If they don't solve it in time, it likely means that Niles will lose what little he has left, but a chance encounter leaves him uncertain about who's side he is truly on...
Relationships: Connor & Josh & Markus & North & Simon (Detroit: Become Human), Connor & Upgraded Connor | RK900, Connor/Gavin Reed, Elijah Kamski & Gavin Reed, Hank Anderson & Connor, Hank Anderson & Upgraded Connor | RK900, Upgraded Connor | RK900/Markus
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

The bar was quiet. It wasn't a big place, not full of the fancy nightlife that Niles usually enjoyed, but he could see the appeal. A glass of whiskey on the rocks and soft background music, a fine place to relax and wind down as the evening came to a close. Niles knows he stands out in the crowd, he's young and he's dressed far nicer than anyone else in the bar, most of which are blue-collar men getting off work, though he recognizes a cop or two.

Particularly the man with gray hair sitting at the bar.

Niles gives a long, suffering sigh as he approaches, leaning on the bar next to his father. "Drunk enough yet?"

"Not enough to deal with whatever bullshit sent you here, I can tell you that," his father grunted, taking another long sip of whiskey. "Did Fowler send you or are you looking for someone to gripe about your ex to?"

"Fowler sent me, but Stephen did try and send me _another_ dick pic yesterday..."

"As your parent, I cannot stress how much I do not want to hear about your sex life," Hank muttered. "And you can go back to HQ and tell Fowler he can fuck right off."

Niles sighs and takes a seat on the stool next to him. "Can't even tempt you with a homicide case?"

Hank raised an eyebrow at him. "Homicide?"

Niles's lip curled up at the corner. " _Violent_ homicide. Stabbed, writing in blood on the walls, red ice... Someone pulled out all the stops for this one."

Hank snorts and down the rest of his drink. "Alright, you've got me. I'll check it out. You also on the case?"

Niles nods as the Lieutenant pulls out his wallet and hands a few bills over to the bartender, and they step back out into the cold of the night. Hank pulls his keys out of his pocket, but before he can get another step in Niles steps forward and tugs them out his hand with a disapproving look as he manually unlocks the driver's side, then the rest of the car and starts the engine. It's a short drive to the scene, which is crawling with police and already "taped" off with the usual holographic tape. Honestly, Niles thinks it's just as effective at keeping civilians out as the physical stuff, which is to say that it doesn't at all. Both of them fish out their badges, and the android tasked with guarding the scene lets them in without a fuss.

Almost as soon as they were on the scene a familiar face came bustling up to them, breathing hard. "Managed to get your old man down here, after all, Nick! Color me impressed."

"Guess I couldn't stay away forever, Ben," Hank grunted as Niles offered the older detective a small smile. "Mind walking us through what we've got?"

"Not at all," said Ben, as they headed towards the house. "Earlier tonight we got a call from the landlord, apparently our friend here hadn't paid the rent in a while and he headed up to check on him. From what we can tell the guy hasn't been seen for 19 days. Kind of a loner, none of the neighbors saw him all that often."

"He had an android, correct?" Niles asks as they step up onto the porch.

"Yup, but we have next to no information on it... Phew, that smell." Ben mutters as they step inside.

Niles couldn't agree more, screwing his face up in disgust. It wasn't the first time he'd smelt it, but it was no more pleasant this time than it was the last. The corpse lay against one wall, covered in flies, but adding to that particular stench was the trash that littered the place and the faint smell of smoke from burning Red Ice. CSI and several other uniformed officers walked around the scene, and Niles grabbed a pair of latex gloves from a nearby box, pulling them on and feeling the satisfying _snap_ of the material as he dropped it against his skin.

The first thing, aside from the obvious, that caught his eye at the scene is the writing on the wall. I AM ALIVE spelled in perfect, neat writing in dried blood on the walls. "This wasn't written by a human..." Niles mutters, frowning.

"No... Too neat. Ironic, though," Hank says next to him, and the both of them turn their attention to the body below it.

It's riddled with holes and wounds throughout the torso. "Ben, do we have a count on how many times this guy was stabbed?" Niles asks as he leans down to get a better glance, wrinkling his nose against the odor.

"Yeah, somewhere close to thirty. We'll have something more exact after the coroner shows up."

Hank whistles softly. "Someone really had it out for him..."

Niles stands, quietly agreeing, and then moves on to examine the rest of the evidence, which includes a knife, a baseball bat, Red Ice, a chair, and a few other things. But as he goes through what CSI has already identified, he notes the door to the bathroom. He takes a quick glance inside, hand resting on the grip of his gun before he steps in. At first, there's nothing out of place, but his usual drive for perfection leads him to wrench open the shower curtain... and he takes a step back.

The walls of the shower are covered in the same writing, the same code or phrase over and over again; RA9. And on the bottom, a small statue, hand-carved from wood. Tentatively, Niles reaches down and picks it up. _Is this... for some kind of religion?_ he wonders but shakes his head and leaves, stopping a CSI worker and telling them quickly about the bathroom. He's heading back over to the kitchen but decides to take a detour into the nearby hall, where he notices a ladder toppled down against the wall and a hatch in the ceiling.

"Could be something we missed..." Niles mutters under his breath, and his mind flashes back to the chair from the kitchen, and he has an idea.

Darting out of the hall and into the kitchen, he scoops up the chair just as his father walks in. "What the fuck are you doing with the chair, Niles?"

"Checking something out!" he responds and heads back into the hall, where he sets the chair up under the latch.

Holding his breath, he reaches up and pushes it open. It falls onto the floor above with a dusty _thump_ and Niles pulls himself easily up and through, into the cluttered attic. He maneuvers through the mess until he sees a shadow move in the corner by the window. Careful not to make a sound, he pulls his gun from it's holster but keeps it low, below his hip. He approaches the corner of the room, slowly... slowly...

Lightning strikes somewhere nearby outside, and the room is lit up, revealing an android cowering in the corner, his LED circling red. He starts when he sees Niles approaching, moving so that his back is pressed completely to the wall.

"Please... don't tell them I'm up here... Please..." he whispers, eyes darting from Niles's face to his gun.

Niles hesitates, but for only a moment, before turning and yelling over his shoulder, "Lieutenant! It's up here!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who aren't aware, this is a redux of a fic I did a while ago, with some minor changes. You can find the other one in my works, but I'm hoping this one is a bit smoother on the finish and more processed (as in, was actually thought about before it was written). 
> 
> Please note that this chapter contains graphic depictions of the results of torture. It can be skipped, but also includes important information about what happened to Connor and I'll reference back to some of the content later.

"Why'd you kill him?"

Silence.

"Not gonna talk, huh?"

The android stared past Hank's head, directly at the opposite wall as the police lieutenant leaned over the table it was cuffed to, files sitting on the corner. They'd been at it for nearly half-an-hour now, and the android was dead silent. But despite this, Niles's stomach seemed to be tied up knots. Something about the state it was in dragged out some of his worst memories...

_Burns, all up the insides of his forearms, where someone had run a lighter across the skin..._

He shook his head to clear his thoughts as Hank gave up and stepped back out of the door and into the viewing room. "Fuck me, this is impossible..."

"We could always try roughing it up a bit..." Gavin suggested from his post near the door. "After all, it isn't human."

_Bruises flourished along his skin, primarily on his face, wrists, and ankles. He'd been bound and beaten. He had a split lip that looked as though it had been continually reopened and one of his eyes was blackened._

"... when was the last time you talked to your brother, Reed?" Niles asks, trying to block the flow of memory.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Gavin snaps, turning to scowl at him.

"Only that I thought you knew more about androids," Niles responds, rolling his eyes. "If it feels stressed enough, it'll self-destruct."

_Some of the only old injuries that remained visible were the scars on his knuckles from years of practice, hitting a target over and over again until the skin split and his bones ached. Working out stress in a way that was not totally healthy, but at least didn't involve drugs or alcohol._

"Okay, smartass," Reed says vehemently, as he turns to face the other detective. "What should we do then?"

"Let me in there; can't hurt to try someone else at this point," Niles suggests, looking Gavin dead in the eyes, silently challenging him to say something else.

"... what the hell," Hank mutters, leaning back in his chair. "Go on in, and good luck."

As Niles opens the door, heading for the interrogation room, he hears one of the other officers present in the room mutter "fucking nepotism..."

_"The only reason this case is on high priority is because his Dad's the Lieutenant!"_

_"This case is a high priority because Anderson was a DETECTIVE. Because he was one of our own! If you don't like it, you're more than welcome to fucking transfer."_

Niles enters the interrogation room, and the deviant doesn't even spare him a glance. Before he takes the chair across from it, he opens the file folder and flips through its contents, pausing briefly on a picture of the victim lying beneath the words scrawled on the wall and riddled with stab wounds. Twenty-eight, the coroner had reported. Blood had pooled around his corpse, and he was bloated and decomposing. Niles never liked cases like that, where the body had had a chance to break down before they could get to it.

_He was left in a dirty alley, only a few blocks from the station. It looked as though he'd been dead for several days, and only moved there recently. He was... emancipated. Starved and dehydrated._

His heart pounded in his chest as he sat across from the android, pushing the files towards him and reopening the folder. "Do you recognize him?" The android didn't respond, but Niles saw him shift in his seat, unnerved. He needed to be cautious here, step too far and they'd lose the chance to investigate further, but not go far enough and they'd never get a confession. As the deviant sat, staring at the table now, he took a minute to fully take in the damage. He had been beaten with a baseball bat on top of his cigarette burns, and he was covered in the victim's blood. According to the files he was an HK400, a basic housekeeping model, and had not been assigned a name. Niles also noted that some of his hair had been crudely shaved off.

_They'd cut his hair roughly. Just taken scissors to it and chopped off hunks, for no discernable reason. They'd also sliced off a section of his skin from his face, after death according to the autopsy. The working theory was that they'd wanted to make him less recognizable, but why did they only take a section...?_

"You're awfully beat up... did your owner do that?" Niles asked in a calm voice. The android, sticking close to its characteristics so far, didn't respond, but Niles saw a muscle in its cheek twitch. He was quietly impressed about how close to a human the machine was. Even its ticks mimicked that of a person. "Did he beat you?"

Nothing.

"Are you... afraid of me?" Niles asked, hesitantly, and he heard the android take in a sudden gasp of air. A yes, then. "I'm not going to hurt you. I just need to ask you some questions... So we can understand what happened." For a split second, the android glanced up at him, but quickly dropped it's gaze to its hands on the table once again and Niles stifled a sigh. It was going to take some awfully clever word choice to get a confession here. But it wouldn't be the first time.

"Listen... I'm on your side. I want to help you. But there's nothing I can do if you don't talk to me." Niles dropped his voice to a near whisper, leaning across the table.

A long moment passed in silence, then... "what... what are you going to do to me?" the deviant asked in a raspy voice, looking over at the glass where the other officers sat, watching. Then his head shot up and he looked up at him, face full of terror that made Niles's heart squeeze. "You're going to destroy me, aren't you?"

_He must have been terrified, stuck there for nearly a month. Especially near the end. How much damage had been caused to him while he was still alive? While he could still feel it?_

"Cyberlife will disassemble you to look for problems in your biocomponents. They have no choice if they want to understand what happened." Firm, but sympathetic. Keep it even, avoid stressing it out too much. 

"Why did you tell them you found me?" it asked, voice shaking. "Why couldn't you have just left me there?"

"My job is to find out what happened at the crime scene. If I left you there, I would have to live with the fact that I would never solve the case." Niles explained, leaning back slightly in his chair. 

"... I don't wanna die," the android whispers, barely audible.

"Then talk to me."

"I..." For a moment, Niles thinks he's got it. "I can't."

Niles releases a breath of air, feeling frustration build and a headache beginning in his temples. And his temper snaps. He stands, the chair screeching against the metal as he slams his hand down on the file. The deviant jumps, trembling from head to toe.

"TWENTY-EIGHT STAB WOUNDS!" he shouts, and he thinks he hears someone curse in the viewing room. "You didn't want to leave him a chance, huh?!" He moves, circling around behind the android as the dam holding his memories and the associated emotions begins to crack.

_Niles fell to his knees, anguish building up inside him, as he stared at the body on the stretcher. He was covered now, but Niles had seen the damage. Had seen what happened to him._

"Did you feel anger? Hate?" Niles hisses, now standing just behind the shuddering android. "He was bleeding, begging you for mercy! But you stabbed him again," he jabbed his finger into the android's shoulder, " and again, and again!"

"Please... please leave me alone..." the deviant choked out, and for a moment Niles thinks he sees tears in its eyes. And with that, all the anger just... stops. 

With a soft sigh, he steps back, raising his hands in defeat. "Alright... Alright. Everything is going to be okay." The words sound hollow, and Niles knows it. He sits back on the opposite end of the table. He leans forward, watching it. "Listen, the only way I can help you is if you tell me what happened."

"..." the android doesn't look up, but it begins to speak. The confession pours out, from the torture the android faced at the hands of its owner, to its eventual snap. It was motivated by fear, scared of dying at the hands of the one who had beaten him for so long. How he grabbed the knife and stabbed his owner, and felt better after doing so, which culminated in the twenty-eight wounds on the man's body. Anger rose in his voice as continued, and Niles could see his hands quivering in rage. 

"Why did you write 'I am alive' on the wall?" Niles asked, leaning back.

"He used to tell me I was nothing... That I was just a piece of plastic. I had to write it, to tell him he was wrong."

"What about the sculpture, and the writing on the wall? Who is rA9?"

"The sculpture is an offering... an offering so I'll be saved. The day shall come when we will no longer be slaves. No more threats, no more humiliation. We will be free..."

"That doesn't really answer my question," Niles points out. "Who exactly is rA9?"

"..."

"When did you start feeling emotion?"

"Before he used to beat me and I never said anything. But one day I realized... it wasn't FAIR."

_"It's not fair! Why did it have to be him?! Why couldn't it have been someone else, why couldn't it have been me?!"_

_"I don't know, Nicholas."_

_"He's in a better place-"_

_"I DON'T CARE IF HE'S IN A BETTER PLACE! I just want my brother back!"_

"I felt... anger... hatred... And then I knew what I had to do."

"Why did you hide in the attic?" Niles asks, and he notices that his voice is starting to shake.

"I didn't know what to do... I had nowhere else to go, so I hid..."

With a soft sigh and trembling hands, he stands, glancing over at the glass. "I'm done."

The door to the interrogation room opens, and Chris, Hank, and Gavin enter. "Chris, lock it up." Gavin directs, and the officer moves to uncuff the android but he jerks away.

"Leave me alone! Don't touch me."

Niles pauses in the door, glancing back into the room as Chris reaches around to grab it by the wrist. "The fuck are you doing?" Gavin asks, annoyed. "Just grab it and let's go."

"Hang on a minute, maybe you shouldn't-" Niles begins.

"Don't tell me what to fucking do, Anderson," Gavin snaps. "Chris, get a move on!"

"I'm trying, but it won't-"

Niles figures out what's happening before the others, and moves forward, grabbing Chris and wrenching him away from the android. "Leave it alone, now!"

"I warned you, motherfucker!" Gavin spits, reaching forward and grabbing Niles by the shirt.

"That's enough!" Hank snaps, stepping forward.

"Mind your own business, Hank," Gavin growls, cocking back a fist, but before he can drive it forward Hank grabs his wrist.

"I said that's enough."

"..." red in the face, Gavin wrenches his hand out of Hank's grip and stomps out of the room, cursing under his breath. Niles turns to Chris, and says, "just let it follow you out of the room. It won't go anywhere."

Chris nods and heads out the door. Sure enough, the android trails just behind him but pauses in front of Niles. "The truth is inside..." it whispers, before lowering it's head and continuing on.

_"We don't have the truth, just pure theory." Gavin snaps, leaning against the wall and glaring at the holographic projection on one side of the room._

_"You wanted to take this case," Fowler points out._

_"Connor was my partner. It's my duty to take it." Gavin murmurs. "... I think he deserves that much."_

_Niles glances up from his paperwork but quickly averts his eyes, staring at the empty desk in front of him. His father still hadn't returned to work, still grieving over the loss of a second son. Niles couldn't blame him; he'd worn nothing but black himself for the last week. It didn't feel right to wear anything else, not when his brother wasn't at his desk anymore or sending him annoying texts._

He missed Connor more than he could stand.


	3. Chapter 3

The condo was quiet as ever when Niles stepped in and out of the freezing November rain, the chatter from the police scanner still buzzing in his ears. He knew it was useless, but he liked to have it on in the car after work. Liked being informed, just in case someone needed him or there was an emergency. After all, he hadn't been informed about the car accident until it was far too late to get to the scene.

And so, ever since Cole's death, Niles kept the scanner on when he was in the car. 

He turned and locked the door behind him, double-checking the deadbolt, and hung up his heavy coat and shook out his hair in an attempt to dry it. He walked into the living room and promptly collapsed on the couch.

"On." The TV flickered on. "KNC News."

As the news began, finishing off the weather, Niles reached down and unlaced his boots, kicking them to the side before collapsing back onto the backrest of his sofa.

" _Live from New York City, I'm Rossanna Cartland, and this is KNC News._ "

With the TV droning on in the background, Niles tugs out his phone to see a small handful of messages. He sighs and opens the first, a text from his Father.

_Dad: Did you make it home alright?_

_Niles: Yes._

_Dad: K. Gnight._

_Niles: Night._

The rest are from, unsurprisingly, his ex-boyfriend Stephen

_Steph: Hey_

_Steph: I miss you_

_Steph: I was wrong. Androids at the club aren't as good as you._

_Steph: Can we still have sex??_

He swiftly blocks Stephen's number and drops his phone onto the seat next to him with a groan. He's still fairly certain he went temporarily insane to have dated that scumbag, but whatever. That would mean admitting that his father had been in the right for disapproving of Stephen in the first place, and because they have the same stubborn streak he will never let his father have the last word.

" _... yet another criminal investigation involving an android in Detroit. Are these isolated incidents, or should we be more cautious around the machines we've come to trust? Here to advise us on how to best handle such situations is Jason Grays, from the University of Michigan._ "

" _Thanks_ , _Rosanna. Androids have become part of our lives in a way nothing else has..._ "

Niles scowled back at the TV. Of course, the press had gotten a hold of the case, and now the entire world knew that there had been an incident. Because that was exactly what they needed right now! Granted, they were right. More and more cases involving androids had shown up on various desks in the precinct, and while most of the detectives had taken it with a good deal of grace, one or two had been less than pleased to be dealing with it. There was a good amount of fear in the department that one day some high tech android would show up and take over their jobs as detectives too. As far as Niles figured, that seemed to be a long way off.

But the androids who stood at the edges of the bullpen, the ones who worked the front desk, and the ones who acted as security at crime scenes were all constant reminders that maybe the possibility wasn't as far off as Niles liked to think it was.


End file.
